


Tabula Rasa

by RevenantAvenger90



Series: Les Sans-culottes: Marvel Shorts [1]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Blood, Bombs are the enemy, Cameos by other Avengers - Freeform, F/M, Gen, Hulk is angry not stupid, Hurt/Comfort, In from the cold, Intelligent Hulk, PTSD, Post-Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Present-tense, Slight Natasha/Bruce, Terrorist bombing, Why do I torture my favorite characters, Winter Soldier references, another day in the life of the Avengers, multi-view, multiple POVs, self-examination, slightly amnesiac!Bucky, this story is strangely schizoid, winter soldier - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-04
Updated: 2015-05-04
Packaged: 2018-03-28 23:06:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3873217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RevenantAvenger90/pseuds/RevenantAvenger90
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nat and Clint are unconscious, the Hulk is still MIA after three months, Thor is off-world, Tony is malfunctioning, and Cap has to get them all out of there alive. The only problem?</p><p>He has a 10-inch piece of metal buried in his guts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tabula Rasa

**Author's Note:**

> Told from the points of view of Cap, Hulk, and Bucky.

_ _

 

 

Nat and Clint are unconscious, the Hulk is still MIA after three months, Thor is off-world, Tony is malfunctioning, and Cap has to get them all out of there alive. The only problem?

He has a 10-inch piece of metal buried in his guts. No joke.

He’s gargling with blood as he staggers towards his unconscious friends, and every step is white-hot icy agony that licks through his entire body. It’s all he can do to stay upright; frankly, he’s amazed that he hasn’t sustained a spinal injury, or something equally horrendous that would take him permanently out of commission. If he could think straight through the pain, he might call in some help from Rhodey or Wanda, the Vision, or maybe Sam; but as it is, he dimly realizes that they’re handling the other crisis off on the other side of New York, and there’s not much Cap can do about it at the moment.

He can’t even remember how they got into this mess. Something about a bomb. That would explain the metal in his guts, but it’s getting harder and harder to think.

“T-Tony,” he chokes, and spits blood onto the rubble. It spatters, thick and crimson, to join the red that already paints the ruined concrete across which he staggers. “T-Tony, you… you alive?”

If he didn’t know better, he’d say he just slurred all those words into one garbled ‘toyulive’, or something equally unintelligible. God, if the nuns could hear him, now…

The response is equally scrambled, but more intelligible than his question was.

_‘Suit… malfun –bzzzzt-... f… inut… Hold… Cap.’_

The floor buckles beneath his feet. Cap gags. More red splashes to the ground. Trembling hands cradle his stomach, and God, but it just _hurts._

He didn’t even realize that he’s already made it over to Clint and Natasha. Neither did he realize it when his knees gave out; as it is, it’s only the faint sound of a groan that draws him out of the prison of his own pain and has him fumbling for their pulses with two scarlet-stained fingers. Nat’s pulse is strong and steady; she’s only been brained at best, knocked senseless by some impact or other. Clint, on the other hand, is a little more critical. His pulse is thready and weak, and all Cap can think about is the picture of his family that Clint keeps close to his heart beneath his Kevlar. The building shudders again, and at the other end of the room, a few more chunks of concrete crash to the ground.

It’s time to go.

It only takes Cap a moment longer to think through his plan than it usually would; first, check Nat and Clint’s necks for spinal injuries. Nothing, thankfully, which means that Cap can move them without much consequence. His mind is getting foggy. Quickly, he scans for the source of Clint’s injury. He finds that a piece of steel rebar has speared through Clint’s left thigh, possibly nicking the artery; it would explain all the red that’s on the ground. Cap wastes no time in pulling a tourniquet from his utility belt, using the very piece of rebar that has speared Clint to tighten and tie off the tourniquet near Clint’s groin to slow the bleeding. It works, to an extent; if nothing else, it should hold until Cap can get him to an airevac for a transfusion or three.

Now comes the tricky part. Balancing someone when he’s healthy is not an easy task, but doable. Carrying two people while he has a 10-inch piece of shrapnel sticking out of his guts? The very thought of it makes Cap want to cry. It’s going to be sheer agony.

Still, it’s his friends’ lives on the line, and even when he was still just a skinny little guy, Cap was never one to let someone else hurt when he could help them instead.

He will never remember, later, how he does it. All he knows is that he somehow gets Natasha over his shoulder (she’s lighter), and that he can’t lift Clint so well under his arm, so instead, he takes a firm hold of the strap of his quiver and starts dragging him. The agony of rising almost makes Cap black out; as it is, it’s only the shuddering of the building that drags him out of the abyss back into life. His vision blurs. Something clanks against metal, and the impact of something against a hard object on his back makes Cap’s knees buckle before he gets his legs under him and takes the first step towards daylight.

It’s the second step that has him screaming.

It’s short and he quickly cuts it off, but Clint’s dead weight pulling against Cap’s arm has twisted and strained all of those stomach muscles that should just be _holding still_ , and Cap just felt something tear. More blood chokes him. He coughs and gags and it splatters to the floor as the building trembles dangerously once more. The tremors are growing more and more frequent; the building will not last very long. Desperation seizes Cap’s heart, and he draws a deep breath, ignores the blood flooding down the front of his uniform, and takes another step, and then another.

Every step is Hell. Every tug of Clint’s body against Cap’s arm tears the massive wound a little further and sends more crimson skittering up Cap’s throat to splash across the floor. The world grows blurry and yellowed. After a few seconds, Cap can’t see clearly at all, anymore.

He’s cold.

When was the last time he felt cold? he wonders distantly.

10 feet to the light.

Deep breath, cough out some more blood, step.

Nine feet.

Cap’s eyes flutter. He staggers and almost falls as the building buckles alarmingly once more.

Eight feet.

His ears begin to ring.

Seven feet.

His boots are squelching with every weak step, his feet sliding inside them. The entire front of his uniform is saturated with crimson. The cold has become a wave of ice that has taken over his limbs. How is he still moving? He’s so _tired._

Six feet.

Over the ringing in his ears, Cap hears an alarming sound. It’s the groan of strained metal and crumbling stone, and he knows from the sudden rocking of the concrete beneath his feet that the building has finally had enough. It’s coming down around them, and all Cap can do is try to get them as close to daylight as possible before it all crashes down around their ears. Adrenaline spikes. He calls on reserves of strength he thought long exhausted, and, screaming, hauls Clint up under his arm before sprinting for the light.

Four feet.

Concrete and rebar crash down around him. A piece glances off the shield on his back, and Cap ducks instinctively.

Two feet.

They won’t make it safely. He throws Clint and Natasha clear of the building, to an awning across the street. His greying vision sees them land on the taut cloth, allowing it to break their fall before it gives way beneath them, dropping them gracelessly to the grocer’s stall below.

One foot from his stagger, and the building comes crashing down around Cap’s ears.

He barely manages to get his shield up over his head and neck. Something cracks, followed by blazing agony, and he can’t move his legs, anymore. Immense weight lands upon his hips, forcing him to the ground.

He can’t move.

He can’t move.

He can’t move.

Something impacts the middle of his back with another sickening _crunch!,_ and Cap vomits blood into the black space beneath his shield. The coppery stench fills his nostrils.

There’s a rumbling, a settling, and then silence. Something dings off of his shield, but otherwise, everything is quiet. Cap can’t think. He can barely breathe. The world is grey, and there’s no strength left in his limbs. Every shallow breath is ice. It calls to mind those hazy last moments in the plane, not so long ago, when the frigid Arctic waters rushed through the glass and took him as their prize. It was cold then, he remembers.

It’s cold, now, too.

Blackness edges his sight. Everything’s quiet, muffled, and he’s just so _tired._ He’s never been this tired, before, and that’s saying something for the guy who spent 75 years as a popsicle. He dimly realizes that he probably shouldn’t close his eyes.

Interestingly enough, it’s not the thought of his injured friends that whispers through his mind as the blackness takes him, but only three words.

_Bucky… I’m sorry…_

Everything melts away, and isn’t it funny, how at the end, he’s all alone?

* * *

Despite what other people think, the Other Guy is no idiot. He’s as smart as Bruce is; after all, they share the same brain and all the same knowledge. It’s just hard to think through all the rage, and harder to keep calm and remind himself that, no, not everybody is out to get him.

He’s hiding out in Honduras when he sees the news.

Terrorists have targeted New York; the Avengers have responded; the Vision, Scarlet Witch, Falcon, and War Machine are taking care of things on Staten Island, and whoever’s left is taking care of things in Brooklyn. Some new player called Daredevil is tackling the relatively quiet Bronx; a kid calling himself Spider-Man is dealing with what few threats there are in Queens; and the bolt of lightning that just lit up Manhattan tells him that Thor has finally made an appearance. They can handle it, he thinks, and turns to go.

Then he sees _her,_ and he sees the explosion, and his vision hazes red, then green.

Seems he and the Big Guy like the same girl, and for good reason, because it’s all he can do to stumble away from the television before the Other Guy is taking over completely and screaming in rage and fear and Bruce is completely consumed in the desperation that floods through the Other Guy.

And let’s face it: the Hulk isn’t leaving any time soon.

In minutes, the Hulk has covered dozens of miles, and it still isn’t fast enough, so he pushes himself harder, harder, harder, struggling to get to _her_ , to _protect,_ to _defend,_ to _avenge._ Five minutes after starting, he’s in Atlanta. 10 minutes finds him in Staten Island, and from there, it’s a hop, skip, and a jump to Brooklyn, where she was last reported to be.

It doesn’t take long for the Hulk to find her and puny Hawkeye. He watches as they fly clear of the second floor of an office building just as the whole thing comes crashing down, and time seems to slow down as he sails through the air and watches her do the same, only for her to land upon the cloth canopy over a greengrocer’s stall. It rips just as the Hulk lands, and sends her and puny Hawkeye tumbling into a pile of zucchini with a mushy crash.

Then the Hulk is there, crouching over her- _Natasha_ , his mind supplies- just as she groans and starts coming to. There’s confusion in her crystalline eyes as she glances around herself, and then surprise as her gaze lands on him. Then a slow smile blooms across her face, and she’s trying to right herself even as she reaches for him.

The Hulk feels warm. He extends a hand to her, lets her wrap her palms around one finger and pull herself up, and then she’s wrapping her arms around his wrist and pressing her cheek to the back of his palm, and the Hulk all but melts.

“You came back,” she whispers.

There’s a groan from puny Hawkeye, and they turn in unison to regard him, finding that he’s blinking up at them, glasses askew, and that his bow is nowhere to be seen. The Hulk sees the tourniquet around puny Hawkeye’s thigh before Natasha does. Then she’s fingering the comm in her ear and calling for a medevac, and the Hulk looks away as he hears the soft clank of metal and the thud of what could only be boots landing on pavement.

His growl rouses Natasha from her call for help, and they turn in unison to find that there’s a man bending over the rubble on the other side of the street.

He’s wearing a hoodie and a ballcap, as well as a pair of worn-out fatigues and some combat boots that have seen better days, but he’s digging at something under the rubble, and the Hulk sees him go still for a long, long moment before the man takes a step away. Something red, white, and blue is by the man’s feet.

He turns to them, and blue-grey eyes flash wildly from the shadows of his hood and cap. There’s a glint of metal at his left wrist.

Natasha is gone an instant later, and the Hulk follows her, more out of curiosity than any real protective sense. Natasha, puny though she is, can take care of herself. No, the Hulk is more intrigued by the other little human who was apparently enough to make her nervous.

“We- We can’t move him,” the man stammers, and he turns his glassy gaze back to the concrete at his feet. He has a Brooklyn accent, but not one common to the modern day. He sounds like the puny Captain. “Not… Not with that block on top of his legs. It’d tear ‘em right off.”

Natasha says something in Russian, and the man jerks, wavers for a second, and then looks at her before replying in kind. Then Natasha looks at the Hulk, and beckons him forward.

“Hulk, we need your help,” she says, and the Hulk watches her, tame in her presence as he is tame nowhere else, as she and the puny Other step aside. Natasha points to a large piece of rubble that’s lying on top of the pile by which they’re standing. “Lift that block, slowly, so we can get Cap out.”

The Hulk’s green-brown eyes turn downwards to the splash of red-white-blue-RED at their feet, and he realizes that it’s Captain America, the not-so-puny guy who gave him a _chance,_ and there’s too much _red_ on the ground there. Just this once, the Hulk doesn’t even snarl as he does as he’s been told. He just steps carefully over the rubble as, behind him, Natasha says something into her comm and the Other kneels beside the shield on the ground. A second later, the block that had been crushing the Captain’s legs is lifted away- the Captain groans pitifully, sounding almost as puny as the others do- and, as Natasha and the Other go to check the extent of the Captain’s injuries, the Hulk sees the blood.

“He’s hurt,” he grunts, and the other two startle visibly, turning their shocked gazes up to him. He snorts in response. “Hulk angry, not stupid.” He gestures to the ground near the Captain’s abdomen. “He’s bleeding out.”

Natasha goes white. Suddenly, she’s snapping orders into her mike, something about needing an evac _last fucking year_ , and boy, if that doesn’t make the Hulk grin with warmth. She checks the Captain’s neck for broken bones, checks his pulse, and the Hulk studies the Captain’s legs, which were buried beneath the rubble. Even the Hulk can tell that they’re both broken, and possibly the man’s hips, as well, just judging by the strange angles at which they’re lying. If his hips are broken, he’s more than likely ruptured most of his organs.

“Both legs broken,” says the Other, confirming the Hulk’s thoughts. “No spinal damage that I can tell, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t any.” His eyes turn up to the Hulk. “You’re right. He’s bleeding out. Far as I can tell, he’s probably going into shock.”

The Hulk snorts. Anybody could have guessed _that._

“How gently can you shift him?” the Other asks, still staring at the Hulk, and the Hulk turns hazel eyes down to the still body at his feet.

“Gently,” the Hulk replies, and, stooping, turns Captain America onto his back, slowly, so slowly, cradling him like a Robin’s egg, so delicate that he could break at the slightest pressure. The motion still rips a whimper from the Captain’s throat, and crimson bubbles in the man’s mouth before gushing down his chin. Natasha turns his head to the side despite the fact that she’s looking more than a little shaken.

There’s _so much blood._ Even the Hulk has to admit to being surprised that the Captain is still alive. The entire front of his uniform from his belly down is saturated with darkening scarlet, the source of which is a deep, ragged abdominal wound that’s only held closed by virtue of the 10-inch piece of shrapnel buried in his guts. It looks to have been driven deeper by the debris that landed upon the Captain’s back. Frankly, the Hulk is amazed that the man’s intestines have not spilled out across the concrete.

The Other is murmuring quietly. He strips off his dirty hoodie and presses the wad of fabric to the gaping wound in the Captain’s belly- _No, chokes the Captain in a broken little voice-_ to try to stem the river of blood. Natasha, meanwhile, is digging through the Captain’s utility belt, muttering about morphine.

“Can’t,” the Other murmurs, still glassy-eyed despite the fact that he’s got the Captain’s blood drenching his hands, wrists, and arms. “Burns right through it. Never carries it.”

The Hulk is curious about this puny human who seems to know so much about the Hulk’s friend.

“You know a lot,” the Hulk states, green-brown gaze boring into the Other. The Other does not react past adjusting his grip slightly on the already-saturated hoodie.

“I-I don’t…” He gives a little facial flinch. Then his blue-grey gaze turns up to the Hulk, and it’s still glassy, but a little more lucid than before. “I think… I think I was his friend. Before.” He pauses, bows his head. They can hear the whine of an engine approaching overhead. The medevac is here. “In another life.”

Natasha darts over to check on puny Hawkeye again as the quinjet lands and paramedics pour out. In seconds, they’ve swarmed over the Captain and are busying themselves with triage and preparing for transport. The Hulk turns to Natasha as she flits back over to him.

“What damage?” the Hulk asks, and gestures expansively to the surrounding area. Natasha shakes her head.

“Nothing we can help with,” she replies. “We evacuated the area as soon as we got here. We were helping clear this building when the bomb went off…” She pauses as there comes a strangled cry from the middle of the group of paramedics, and suddenly, there are bodies flying every which way. The Captain has woken up. “Help them hold him!”

The Hulk does as she demands, and presses down- _gently, gently, now-_ on the Captain’s shoulders and arms. Blue eyes, the color of the sky, gaze unseeingly up at the Hulk, the sclera a stark red from the ruptured blood vessels there, and there’s blood coming from the corners of the Captain’s eyes and leaking out of his nose and mouth. It’s been smeared all across his face, and it’s starting to flake off as it dries. His ears are probably bleeding, too, underneath his reinforced cowl.

“Hold still,” the Hulk commands, and gives a snarl for good measure. The Captain writhes weakly beneath the Hulk’s palms, but it’s still enough to tear the gaping abdominal wound even further, and fresh blood streams over his uniform, puddling beneath him because the fabric can’t soak up any more. The Hulk snarls, and then gives a roar so loud that even the Captain hears it. He stills beneath the Hulk’s hands, blinking blindly up in the general direction of the Hulk’s face.

The paramedics edge back in and finish preparing the Captain for transport, and the Hulk keeps the pressure of his grip even and light. The Captain’s mouth works silently for a second.

“…H-Hulk…?”

The Hulk squeezes the Captain’s shoulders reassuringly, and the man’s bloodless lips stretch into a weak, crimson-streaked grin.

“G-Glad… you…” He coughs, and red bubbles out of his mouth, flooding across his cheeks and chin. “…h-here…”

The Hulk presses one large fingertip to the Captain’s mouth, silencing him, and then squeezes his shoulder with the other hand. He can see it, now, the blood that’s slowly soaking through the cowl. The Captain’s eardrums have ruptured, so he likely can’t really hear anything.

“Damn it, he’s healing around the metal!”

“Gotta get him to the base- he’s lost _way_ too much blood!”

“Do we have any of his on hand? Can he even _take_ normal O-neg?”

“Just get him to the base.”

In a few minutes, they’ve gotten the Captain transferred to a gurney and onto the quinjet, and the Hulk is watching as puny Hawkeye is carried into it, as well, when a small hand lands upon his forearm. Natasha smiles up at him.

“Will you meet us at the base, if I go with Clint? It’s upstate a bit.”

The Hulk grunts, and then nods.

He’ll be there.

* * *

He isn’t sure how he ended up here. Probably something to do with that redhead- he vaguely remembers her from the time _before,_ flashes and impressions, but it’s _something-_ and something about solidarity. Either way, he’s sitting in a lobby outside of a medical bay, wondering just how the Hell he got here, when someone takes a seat beside him and presses a styrofoam cup full of steaming coffee into his flesh hand. He blinks sluggishly and turns his head slightly to regard the newcomer.

It’s the redhead- _he still doesn’t know her name, but her knows her face, and that’s something-_ and she’s regarding him with suspicion and what looks like a little bit of concern.

“Yasha?” she asks, and he blinks at the Russian name before turning his gaze down to the cup.

“Niet,” he murmurs in return. He understands the Russian like he understands English: instinctively, intrinsically, and it’s a part of him in a way that the name she said is not. “I don’t… I don’t know who I am.”

It’s something that he’s faced for the past year since they took him out of the cold, since the plunge into the river, since _the end of the line_.

Nothing new, but disturbing nonetheless.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes-“

“I know that.” He takes a sip of the coffee- _black, no sugar, perfectly bitter and too hot, too hot-_ and wonders how she knew how he likes his joe. “I know- I know who everyone says I’m supposed to be. Sergeant James Barnes of the one-oh-seventh. Bucky Barnes, partner- partner of Captain America.” Best friend. _With you ‘til the end of the line._ “But… But I’m not _him._ Not anymore. And don’t call me Yasha. I don’t know who _he_ was, either.”

The redhead regards him steadily for several long seconds, and then she nods, slowly, and a fragment of a memory flits through his mind.

_porcelain skin sweet warm not too hot just perfect gripping him red silk between his fingers gasping panting beautiful so beautiful_

He licks his lips.

“Did we… know each other?” he asks.

“We did.”

_summer sunshine on gold a bright smile fingertips stained with charcoal hotdogs on Coney Island sky-blue eyes end of the line end of the line end of the line_

“Captain Steven Grant Rogers and I… we knew each other, too?”

A wry smile quirks her lips. “Probably not the same way you and I knew each other.”

He considers that.

“What do you want me to call you, if not Yasha?” she inquires. He stares down at the dark liquid cupped between metal and flesh, ice and warmth.

_not James not Bucky not Yasha just a blank slate with little images chalked onto its dark surface_

“Barnes will suffice.” A family name, his subconscious supplies. Impersonal. No history. _Tabula rasa._ “You?”

Cool fingertips brush the back of his flesh wrist, and he glances over to find her smiling at him, and it’s the beauty of a sunset peeking out from behind the clouds.

“You can call me Natasha. Nat, for short.”

_Natalia Alianovna Romanova Black Widow Natasha Romanoff_

“Natalia Alianovna Romanova, Black Widow, Natasha Romanoff, Avenger, Agent of Shield,” he rattles off as the faintest of memories flits through his head. “I… I shot you, didn’t I?”

A horrible, horrible, horrible, flat note blares out through the operating room down the hall. The coffee ripples in the cup.

The smile turns a little cold. “You did.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it.”

They fall silent, listening to the muffled shouting of the technicians struggling to stabilize the _cold body no pulse bloodless crimson choking dying_ patient under their knives. He wonders, absently, how extensive the damage is.

Heavy footsteps meet their ears, and Natasha turns away to greet the giant slowly making his way towards them, as well as the smaller man walking beside him.

_Bruce Banner Hulk Sam Wilson Falcon_

Wilson is questioning Natasha, and he does not need to look up to know that green-brown eyes are regarding him from within the Hulk’s broad face. He does not react. He does not need to.

He takes another sip of the _burning scalding too hot criminy why the heck didn’t you warn me Steve_ coffee and keeps his ears trained on the O.R.

“Puny stranger,” the Hulk mutters, and seats himself in the next chair over.

Unless he’s mistaken, he thinks that the Hulk is protecting Natasha. Perhaps there’s _weakness frailty feebleness cracks exploit exploit exploit_ something there, between them, like what Natasha implied used to be between him and her, back in the _before_ that he just can’t quite remember.

“He’s calling himself Barnes.” Natasha does not explain further than that; she doesn’t need to. He thinks that the rest of them can probably see plain as the nose on his face that he’s not quite the same man who _killed maimed destroyed_ attacked them last year. Yeah, he’s the same in body, but he has no idea who he really is.

If he doesn’t have the mission… who is he?

He’s not James. There’s a history behind that name, one of war and of peace and, for some reason, he thinks _nuns_ when he thinks of that name.

He’s not Bucky. That man was Captain America’s best friend, andhe doesn’t really know _who’s Bucky_ Captain America, anymore, so he doesn’t think that that’s the right name, either.

He’s not the Asset. He’s nobody’s pawn, anymore, and he won’t be, ever again, if he can help it.

He’s not Yasha. He doesn’t know that man, doesn’t know Natasha or the history behind that name, either, and he has a feeling that, since it’s Russian, it’s probably connected to _blood death pain murder_ the people who kept him in the _ice death freezing oh God hurts hurts hurts_ cryogenic tube.

What he does know is that Captain America had faith in him, however misguided it may be. He knows that Natasha is regarding him as an old friend, returned from the _ice frozen hurts_ cold. He knows that the Hulk and that the Falcon watch him warily, as an enemy or as a wild card, he doesn’t know. To them, as much as to himself, he is a blank slate upon which he must write a new history, even if he never regains his old one.

Yes. Barnes will suffice.

* * *

The world filters back into existence slowly, slowly, slowly. Everything is hazy in a way he hasn’t felt since that one time when he broke his arm and they gave him morphine for the pain while they reset it. That was back before his mom died, before Grandpa Ian passed away, back when he was 5’ 4” and couldn’t walk a flight of stairs without wheezing.

Huh. Whatever it is, it must be strong. It’d have to be enough to knock out a rhino, to keep him from feeling anything.

Dimly, he wonders what happened.

“You… You should open your eyes.”

Steve obeys.

The world is bleary and white, and it spins slowly overhead, which makes him feel sick, so he closes his eyes again and tries to keep from throwing up. Something cool is resting alongside his right forearm. He can’t tell exactly what it is, but it grounds him, and he tries to focus on it as he gets his bearings. He takes a breath, and risks opening his eyes again.

He focuses on the thing, and his blurry world stops spinning so nauseatingly.

It’s a metal arm. The plates are shining in the dim overhead lighting, and as his sight clears a bit more, he can make out the dim reflection of his own arm in the reflective surface. Slowly, he traces it with his eyes, from wrist to shoulder- it looks almost _real-_ and then takes in the sight of the red star painted on the metallic deltoid. A dim memory flashes to him-

_Who’s Bucky?_

-and he swallows, throat sticking to itself because his mouth is bone-dry and he has nothing with which to wet his throat.

Blue-grey eyes regard him quietly from beneath a fall of chestnut hair.

Perhaps unwisely, Steve opens his mouth. “B…”

“Don’t.” Bucky Barnes reaches to the tray at the bedside, grabs a cup full of ice chips, and gently coaxes Steve’s mouth open to place one on his parched tongue, but there’s no real tenderness there, no meaning behind the gesture past the acknowledgement of Steve’s need for rehydration, and as Steve gazes into the other man’s eyes, he realizes that his friend still isn’t all there.

Still, the water feels wonderful as it melts across his tongue, and he sighs as he swallows, relieved that he can actually complete the motion without his throat sticking.

“Bucky?” he croaks when he feels that he has the strength. A choked sound makes its way out of Bucky’s throat, and he looks pained in a way that Steve has rarely seen, before.

“No, I… I’m not…” Bucky runs his shaking flesh hand through his unruly hair and chews on his lip. After a moment, he sighs, and reaches out to take Steve’s right hand in his flesh one. Steve stares in bewilderment as Bucky shakes his hand. “I’m going by Barnes. It’s nice to meet you, I suppose.”

Steve swallows, because it’s not his best friend, and it’s not his enemy, but rather, it’s a new beginning, and he figures it’s a start.

“You can call me Steve.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also posted to Tumblr, deviantART, and Fanfiction.net, with artwork.
> 
> Written after seeing Age of Ultron on Friday, because I felt the need to torture Cap and because Bucky. Or, lack thereof. So, yeah.
> 
> Please let me know what you think!


End file.
